Brussels, 13/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission wants research into poverty-related diseases - AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis - to bring more tangible results for developing countries. “More effort is needed to translate efforts into products which have a substantial impact on global public health,” said European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik at the start of a two-day conference on research into poverty-related diseases. “All the stakeholders need to be motivated and become involved … we need to ensure that these diseases get attention,” he added. The EU invested €450 million in research in this field under its Sixth Framework Programme for Research which ended in June 2006 and had a total of 80 collaborative projects targeted at these diseases. The challenge, Potocnik said was to ensure that developing countries could make use of this knowledge and innovation. The EU can help these countries, through such projects as the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), devoted to the development of clinical trials and new therapies and vaccinations against AIDS. Despite a difficult start, this project has made substantial progress and has been a “shot in the arm” for cooperation between the EU and developing countries, the Commissioner said. AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are the three main poverty-related diseases, and are responsible for 10% of global mortality, 5 million people every year. The reason for their being called poverty-related is that they affect developing countries most severely. (B.C./transl.rt)